Sa‘īd ibn Abī ‘Arūbah, it is reported from Qatādah that he said: “They were forgotten with regard to every good, but were not forgotten with regard to evil.”

It is as they said, for it is known that when they are punished, He is the Creator of their punishment, and it occurs by His will. Will necessarily entails knowledge, so He wills only what He knows. Indeed, He decreed it and recorded it before it came to be, and He knows it—and everything else—after it comes into being, just as He has stated in numerous places that He knows the servant’s circumstances. Using the word “forgetting” in such a context does not entail a lack of knowledge.